


Strange Dreams

by chambermusic



Category: Assassin's Creed, Assassin's Creed: Syndicate - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 10:42:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5413799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chambermusic/pseuds/chambermusic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was beautiful. A wondrous sight. And he was lying on the floor, outside my neighbor's door.</p><p>A love story written from the accounts of three outsiders.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. From the Diary of Mrs. Price, Fellow Resident

**Author's Note:**

> This is an experimental piece, one that may require a bit more patience from my readers (if I have any!). I had a lot of fun working on the plot, but fleshing it out turns out to be the tricky part.

He was beautiful. A wondrous sight. And he was lying on the floor, outside my neighbor's door.  

I watched him through the peep hole: a young man in the blossom of youth, that creamy complexion of his flushing pink at nose and ears. The front of his shirt was all wet (from an overturned cup?). I suppose he was drunk.

What do younger folks drink these days? This I did not know. Instead I watched him some more: how handsomely he dressed (save for the wet shirt), the collar of his coat all crisp and sharp angles, his eyes obscured by a fashionable hat. His chest heaved, as if in deep sleep, but from time to time he would turn. I wonder who was he waiting for? The man who lived next door? In truth I knew nothing of our neighbor; Don was the one who did all the socializing. Residents of high-end London apartments were of the private sort, this much I had gathered, and I avoided looking straight at people whenever I went out for groceries. Once, Don said our neighbor must have been a man with a past, for a long scar ran the length of his face, contracting and convulsing as he laughed and spoke. Perhaps he was not of the gentle folks?

What business, I wonder, did the young man have with our older neighbor? I have watched his doorway before (of course I did), but had never seen anyone coming or going except for a queer-looking usher. 

Harmony wailed. I went to pacify her. By the time I got back the door to my neighbor's was open. The young man feigned sleep, but his chest rose and fell differently now, I could tell. A slippered feet stepped out of the doorway. Was the gentleman home the entire time? Before I could make sense of this, his other feet stepped over the young man, and an arm came down to brush the hat off from his face. The boy -- oh Lord, he was barely older than a boy -- lay between his legs, stiffly at first as if just awoken, but then his posture _shifted_.

\--His entire body was thrown back to bare a pale, smooth inch of throat, lips twisted in a smile. I was stunned, electrified at the sight. I could hardly have dreamed of a smile like this. A smile that belonged more to a curious feline than to a man. A smile so wild. So naked. I imagined the smile was mirrored in kind. I was sure of it.

I did not stay to watch the older man dip in to close the distance. I need not. Instead I turned and heaved, my back pressed against the door. The exchange was so perverse, yet so intimate…I thought of the time Don took me out cycling, when we had dated for three months. How I was wearing my pristine white frock, not yet yellowed from washing. Don had stopped the bike and asked, absently, as if suddenly stricken by a succubus: "Do you feel the vibration between your legs? Does it excite you?" How I looked at him, dumbfounded…

 


	2. Handwritten Note to Jacob Frye, From Evie Frye

DEAR JACOB,

HENRY AND I ARE BOTH VERY HAPPY FOR YOU. ~~OF COURSE WE ARE.~~ ALL THAT MATTERS IS YOU FOUND SOMEONE SPECIAL TO YOU, AND WE ARE ENTIRELY AT PEACE WITH WHOMEVER YOU CHOSE. ~~YOU SHOULD INVITE HIM OVER~~ WE WILL WAIT UNTIL YOU THINK THE TIME IS READY FOR US TO BE INTRODUCED.

P.S. I'M PROUD OF YOU, JACOB. I JUST HOPE YOU KNOW THAT.

EVIE


	3. Letter and Phonograph Recording from Robert Dalloway, a Writer

Lancelles,

 _Guess what_? By the time I got to Waterloo station, I was told there had been a "disturbance" at the tracks, and my train would not leave for another forty-five minutes! Not to come off as extremely crude, but with the wonderful variety of options for taking one's life at home, why do people still insist on jumping off the tracks? God forbids I had resorted to taking a _cab_. The rest of the story should be a surprise to nobody. To think I have ended up forty minutes late to my appointment with Mr. Roth! Urgh! A most unlucky day indeed!

It was only by divine providence that Mr. Roth had been in a fair mood, and was still sipping drinks by the time I arrived. I set up the phonographs (even Mr. Roth had seemed positively curious about them) and started the interview. There would be many such interviews to come, I'm sure, until my grand work of Mr. Roth's biography shall be completed. Now, Lancelles, please do be a good friend and keep those phonograph tapes coming--they are of most importance to my work.

I ordered coffee while the machine was being set up. Mr. Roth had asked me about my choice of beverage, and I was positively thrilled to have told him all about it: why, the shop only sold finest coffee imported from the country of Columbia, all the way from South America! Now, as I was telling you, aside from being the legend of theater, Mr. Roth was a most amicable fellow. He had laughed and said, do be warned, Mr. Dalloway, and this from a hopeless addict, the taste of such things exotic kills the taste for normal pleasures.

\--To think you have asked me to write the biography for Philip Twopenny first! Shame on you, my dear Lancelles!

 

 

RECORDING OF MAXWELL ROTH, INTERVIEW NO. 1

* * *

 ……

[00:36:32] (To the question whether anything of note happened late) Yes…something did. Something great, in fact. I found myself a protégé of sort.

[00:36:40] He was a remarkable young man…reared in the most unusual of circumstances. A beautiful boy, this one. Extremely quick on the feet. He has taught me much, in fact…How do you literary folks call it, Mr. Dalloway? _La Inspiration_ , a _Muse_ , for me. He has inspired me for the better: to think freer, dream larger and bolder, wilder... and I have so much to impart to him, as well…

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note Phonograph was invented in 1877. I guess I could say this is strictly speaking an AU, so I don't have to be specific about which year things are happening.  
> And in case you are wondering...yes I am a big fan of Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I thought about using both the name Lancelles and Drawlight, but that even took ME out of the story, so...


	4. A Second Phonograph Recording from Mr. Dalloway

RECORDING OF MAXWELL ROTH, INTERVIEW NO. 3

* * *

[00:05:44] (Laugh) The production of _Ezio_! Yes, everyone wants to talk about the production of _Ezio_ . A quest for revenge, a mystery of the ultimate evil, an ill-fated romance… _what's not to love_? And our lead, Mr. Esposito, simply _supreme_ …how heads just roll with his Italian beat! (Laugh)

……

[00:13:04] Ah, I've had the distinct pleasure of working with playwright Ms. Emilia Blake on this. Now, let it be said that the common opinion of theater to be somewhat unsuitable, and, well, indecent, for the ladies is… _COMPLETE HORSESHIT_! Never worked with any playwright half as talented or as professional as Ms. Blake!

……

[00:15:34] …as for the romantic component of _Ezio_ , both Ms. Blake and I had long felt that we ought to depart from the classic formula of tragedy, and the incitement and reversal should…both be building towards a greater sense of climax. Now, as to where the climax would be…was actually where Ms. Blake and I disagreed.

[00:16:02] Our lovely Emilia first had her mind set on bringing about the peak at the lover's reunion. _The Venice scene_ _, yes._ Long estranged loves encounter one another in a city drunk on its pleasures…very sweet, truly, but I had to be the dissonant! (Laugh) I said, look, Emilia…there's _only death that immortalizes love. This sweet passion that overcomes us from beyond the grave…_

[00:16:14] The Mistress of Love…is a cruel mistress. A goddess of the heathens. She takes sacrifices of heartaches and heartbreaks, yes, and our letters and songs…but she bathes, Emilia, in the blood of those who love. There's a reason why the loveliest of women brings the calamity of war… _Helen of Troy_ … if heads shan't roll on the steps where her fragrance lingers, if blood shan't flow where her bare feet have been…it's _a_ _fancy, a fondle, a trifle_. But _love_ _…love_ is something else entirely…

……

[00:18:01]…needless to say I succeeded. _The death of Christina Vespucci_. What a _marvelous_ act. Ms. Blake has done us all proud…of course, I co-authored some small parts of it…

……

[00:23:55] (Interviewer plays excerpt from _Ezio_ )

[00:24:01] (Laugh) What is this, Mr. Dalloway? Your invention of a new torture for playwrights? (Laugh)

……

[00:29:30] (To the question whether the poem from excerpt was written by Ms. Blake) No, no, no…I'm afraid that was all me! (Laugh) Must have thought myself pretty good… (Laugh)

[00:29:44] … _to the flame of the fire that burns close to skin_ …Yes. I'm sure you know I was an actor of the Classics in youth. I had all of Shakespeare's work committed to memory, and his sonnets…in my pubescent foolishness I thought that was it, surely, the secret to all writing, poem for all poems to come: just a simile, to the sun to the moon to the air you breathe…and that's how I wrote of love, for years, as if all words that could be written have already been written, all songs sung long ago.

[00:30:03] …and I had not known the difference…until. Until… 

 


End file.
